David Lasorsa, now of Port Angeles, has traveled the world as a longtime professional mountaineer, teaching survival skills and glacier travel to field parties in the mid-1980s.

After narrowly missing an avalanche from a high camp because someone is his party had gotten injured and they had to move down to the low camp, Lasorsa said he gave up on climbing big mountains after that – his priorities changed.

He had met his wife, Brenda, while she was a research scientist in the Antarctic and they enjoyed many “climbing dates” — he even proposed to her on top of Mount Baker. Still, she was never thrilled about his climbing ambitions, and after several more seasons in the Antarctic, they decided to settle down for good and raise a family.

Earlier this month the movie “Everest” opened in theaters nationwide. It recounts the 1996 disaster on Mount Everest in which eight climbers died during a single storm, among them Lasorsa’s longtime climbing partner and friend Rob Hall.

“The story I have to tell is about Rob Hall. I had the honor of knowing Rob as a fellow guide, my climbing partner and friend. Maybe telling this small story is a bit of a catharsis for me, as both of us started on similar paths, but then diverged; I for a safe home life, Rob for the tallest peaks in the world.

I first met Rob while working in the Antarctic in 1984. I was a mountaineer, assigned to work with three New Zealand (“Kiwi”) climbers, teaching survival and glacier travel to field parties.

Rob already was an accomplished climber in New Zealand, having put up some impressive winter ascents and two trips to the Himalayas. He was only 23, yet his maturity was impressive.

For Rob it was all about climbing. He had dreams to climb the tallest peaks in the world and the crazy idea of being able to not only climb Everest, but to lead guided parties up that peak. He joked that there would be a few lawyers and doctors from Seattle who would pay $30,000 to be guided up Everest – that dream would prophetically come true in 1992.

I just wanted to summit an 8,000-meter peak (26,246 feet); any of the 14 such mountains in the world would do.

Rob and I made a number of climbs and first ascents in the Antarctic during our “training” time for Search and Rescue teams in 1984-1986.

We attempted Annapurna I (26,545 feet) in 1987, during which Rob was injured in a paragliding accident.  For Rob, this accident made him more determined than ever.

After several attempts, he and fellow Kiwi Gary Ball and Peter Hillary (son of Sir Edmund) would go on to summit Everest in 1990. This would be Rob’s first of five Everest summit climbs, which was (then) a record by a non-Sherpa.

Gary and Rob immediately followed that feat by becoming the first climbers to climb the Seven Summits — the highest peak on each continent — within one year.

Buoyed by their climbs, Rob and Gary founded Adventure Consultants and began guiding the “big mountains,” leading the first guided trip to Mount Everest in 1992. While I was content to challenge myself with milder local peaks, Rob continued with guiding climbs of Everest and other Himalayan peaks.

It was on May 11, 1996, that I heard from friends that Rob was in trouble on Everest. By May 12 we found out he had died near the South Summit, at 8,763 meters (28,750 feet), trying to save the life of his client Doug Hansen.

If anything good came out of that tragedy, it’s that the better guide companies now screen clients closer, have much better weather forecasts and often do not have the head guide on the climb itself — making important decisions from the relative clear-minded altitude of Base Camp.

Brenda gave birth to our son, Nick, in January 1996. Rob’s wife Jan gave birth to their daughter, Sarah in July 1996, nine weeks after Rob’s death.

I sometimes think what Rob would be like as a father to Sarah if he were alive. Would she follow him into the highest peaks, maybe become a guide herself?

Or, would Rob, like me, have become a casual climber, content to just enjoy the time in the mountains with his child?

I heard that she had climbed Kilimanjaro with Jan when she was only 15, but that she had no plans to further her climbing ambitions, looking forward to visiting Paris and a “climb” of the Eiffel Tower instead. I think Rob would have gotten a good laugh out of that.”

Everyone has a story and now they have a place to tell it. Verbatim is a first-person column that introduces you to your neighbors as they relate in their own words some of the difficult, humorous, moving or just plain fun moments in their lives. It’s all part of the Gazette’s commitment as your community newspaper. If you have a story for Verbatim, contact editor Michael Dashiell at editor@sequimgazette.com.